Fwd: NASA and Human Spaceflight News – Feb. 14, 2014 and Frank Alanis' AMF flyer

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: February 14, 2014 9:41:12 AM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: NASA and Human Spaceflight News – Feb. 14, 2014 and Frank Alanis' AMF flyer

 

Happy Valentine's Day and Happy President Day on Monday.  Have a great weekend!

Congrats again to Frank Alanis on his upcoming retirement – his last day with NASA is February 28^th!

 

 

From: Mapp, Darlene Marie. (JSC-EP111)[REDE CRITIQUE NSS JV]
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 5:36 PM
To: JSC-DL-EP-Division; JSC-DL-EP-Contractors
Subject: Frank Alanis Retirement Luncheon - Thursday - Feb. 27th - Mamacitas Patio - 11-1:00 PM

 

 

All,

Please pass this on to anyone who may be interested in attending. 

Please RSVP, so that we can get an accurate headcount for the resturant.

 

 

Thank You,

Darlene Mapp

Division Secretary - REDE/Critique

Propulsion and Power Divison

Office: 281-483-0446

 

 

NASA and Human Spaceflight News

Friday – Feb. 14, 2014

Happy Valentine's Day

 

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION:

The ISS Program has embarked on a first of a kind collaborative mission to advance ground based university cancer research to flight based research aboard the ISS entitled, University Research- 1 (UR-1). NASA representatives involved in UR-1 and a Texas Southern University student participant will be featured on ABC13's "Crossroads" show this Sunday, Feb. 16 at 11 a.m. Central.

"Crossroads" celebrates African American heritage while it strives to educate and enlighten the viewer about the contributions African Americans make, and talks candidly about issues of concern in this particular community.

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

Astronaut Scott Kelly gears up for a year in space

 

Daniel Dunaief - Times Beacon Record (East Setauket, NY)

 

Scott Kelly aimed high as a pole vaulter at Mountain High School in West Orange, N.J. In 2015, the son of former police officers Richard and Patricia, the first female officer in West Orange, plans to live at a higher altitude longer than any other American, spending a full year aboard the International Space Station.

 

El Paso High students talk space with NASA mission control chief

Trip: Students took a 'virtual field trip' to lecture by El Pasoan, Ginger Kerrick

 

Andrew Kreighbaum - El Paso Times

 

El Pasoan Ginger Kerrick dished to El Paso High physics students Thursday on what it's like to direct operations in NASA's mission control, which oversees flights and activity on the International Space Station — and the route she took to get there.

 

Report: NASA Needs Agency-wide Rules for Foreign Access to Centers

 

Space News

 

NASA should centralize the patchwork of security procedures and personnel governing foreign access to its U.S. field centers, an independent panel recommended in a report triggered by allegations of security breaches at the centers. "There is no systematic approach to [foreign national access management] at NASA," said the report from the National Academy for Public Administration. "[T]he result is a broad range of outcomes, many of which are insufficient."

 

Port Canaveral wants to expand into KSC, Air Force land

 

Mark Matthews - Orlando Sentinel

 

For decades, Port Canaveral has lived in the shadow of its high-flying neighbors, Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

 

But in a power play that a few years ago would have been unthinkable, the port is trying to snag several hundred acres of land from KSC and the Air Force station. It also wants to run a train route through KSC to more efficiently connect the harbor to the state's rails.

 

Downey space museum is struggling to survive

The Columbia Memorial Space Center, on a site tied to the Apollo and space shuttle programs, is a big drain on city funds, but the city wants to wean it off public support

 

James Barragan - Los Angeles Times

 

Bob Thompson fondly remembers when Downey was buzzing with pride and payrolls as a major hub for work on the Apollo space program and the construction site for six space shuttles.

 

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

Astronaut Scott Kelly gears up for a year in space

 

Daniel Dunaief - Times Beacon Record (East Setauket, NY)

 

Scott Kelly aimed high as a pole vaulter at Mountain High School in West Orange, N.J. In 2015, the son of former police officers Richard and Patricia, the first female officer in West Orange, plans to live at a higher altitude longer than any other American, spending a full year aboard the International Space Station.

 

Kelly, who earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and two Defense Superior Service Medals in the Navy, is in the middle of a two-year training program before his record-setting mission. While he's been to the station that orbits over 200 miles above the surface of the Earth for over five months, he will more than double his stay in a floating home with the best view of the planet.

 

He will not only conduct scientific experiments, but will also be a test subject. By sending Kelly to low Earth orbit for that long, NASA hopes to collect the kind of information about the immune system, muscles and bones that will help in planning future trip to asteroids or Mars.

 

Kelly and his identical twin brother Mark, who is a retired astronaut and is married to former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, volunteered to compare how their bodies reacted differently during Scott's year in space.

 

While aboard the ISS, Kelly will circle the globe 15 to 16 times a day, sleep strapped to a wall, drink his recycled urine (which he said tastes better than tap water) and won't shower for a year.

 

Kelly spoke about his expectations for a year in space.

 

Q: Where are you training?

 

Kelly: Training is conducted in the U.S., Russia, Germany and Japan. Sometimes, we even go to Canada for the robotic stuff.

 

Q: What about the scientific part of the trip?

 

Kelly: Thirty percent of our training is knowing how all the payloads operate. We have to do the work that scientists on the ground need us to perform.

 

Q: Do you have to be able to provide medical support to each other?

 

Kelly: When they fly us up there, we're pretty healthy. We are trained to remove teeth, repair crowns and even to give injections in someone's mouth.

 

Q: Will there be a doctor while you're there?

 

Kelly: For about six months, I'm with an American astronaut. There are usually six of us on board. He's a former emergency room physician. If there was something wrong with him, it would probably be me taking care of him.

 

Q: How did you feel the last time you returned from the station?

 

Kelly: I was physically stronger because I lifted weights six days a week for six months.

 

Q: Are you excited to go back to the space station?

 

Kelly: It's the most incredible engineering achievement in the history of the Earth. It's a magical place. Between the sense of participating in the program and what it took to get you there, the amount of energy involved. You're launched on a rocket at 25 times the speed of sound.

 

Q: Did you take a lot of pictures last time you were there?

 

Kelly: I probably took 5,000 pictures. We've had people take 100,000 in six months.

 

Q: Does going into space give you a different perspective on the Earth?

 

Kelly: From space, you don't see political boundaries. We're all part of one larger family, as citizens on Earth.

 

Q: Any other observations?

 

Kelly: If you look at the horizon of Earth, you see the atmosphere. It's this thin film. It almost like very fragile. It's scary that that's the only thing protecting us … from things that would come through our atmosphere and kill us.

 

Q: Do you know what books you'll take?

 

Kelly: We have iPads on board. I will bring a few. The last time I was in space, I read "Kite Runner." My kids learned that. This year, for Christmas, they got me "A Thousand Splendid Suns" [by the same author, Khaled Hosseini].

 

Q: Do you keep up with your favorite sports teams?

 

Kelly: I have watched the Texans games up there. Hopefully, the Astros will have a good year in a couple of years. The Rockets should be pretty good. I would definitely watch. The last time, I didn't fly during baseball season. NASA can send the games live or recorded.

 

Q: Are there difficult days to be in space?

 

Kelly: I've been in space twice during Christmas. It's a cool place to be. I have this privilege of being in this unique place. Certainly, January 8th will be difficult. I'll think about that January 8th when I was in space and my sister-in-law [Gabrielle Giffords] was shot.

 

Q: Do you ever find countdowns or anything else on Earth that makes you think of space?

 

Kelly: There are certain things, it's like déjà vu. I went on a tour of the Harris County Jail and there was one room that we went into that for whatever reason smelled like the space station. It's a combination of cleaning antiseptic smell and body odor.

 

Q: What advice to you have for kids?

 

Kelly: The best part of this job for me is working on something that is very challenging and working very hard at it with a group of talented people. You can do that in many other areas of future work, in school with your education, in sports. … Do the best job and you can be proud of your success.

 

Q: You have a steady persona. Is that typical of NASA?

 

Kelly: It's more the military culture — being in the military, training, dealing with high stress tempo and in difficult environments. NASA has gotten that kind of mindset from the military. The original astronauts were all military and test pilots and fighter pilots.

 

 

El Paso High students talk space with NASA mission control chief

Trip: Students took a 'virtual field trip' to lecture by El Pasoan, Ginger Kerrick

 

Andrew Kreighbaum - El Paso Times

 

El Pasoan Ginger Kerrick dished to El Paso High physics students Thursday on what it's like to direct operations in NASA's mission control, which oversees flights and activity on the International Space Station — and the route she took to get there.

 

Kerrick, the mission operations directorate International Space Station manager, spoke to the students from the Johnson Space Center in Houston via a video teleconference as they took turns peppering her with questions about the operations of mission control, the International Space Station and her time as a student from the school's library.

 

The group of about 30 juniors and seniors is one of only 12 from schools across the country that will have a chance to speak with Kerrick and mission control this year.

 

Asked about the kinds of science conducted on shuttle missions and in the space station, Kerrick said it's more a matter of what isn't being studied.

 

"We have a lot of human health science, biology, physics, space science," she said. "We want to understand the effects of space on the human body so if folks decide we want to go beyond low-earth orbit, we understand what we need to protect the astronauts from."

 

Kerrick, who earned bachelor's and master's degrees in physics at Texas Tech University, said students can land a job at mission control by studying science and math.

 

"All of these folks have bachelor's degrees in math, science and engineering. They don't necessarily work in their specialties. They study mechanical engineering, electrical engineering," she said. "The important thing is they learn to think and become critical problem solvers by learning those subjects and we make use of those skills here in mission control."

 

In response to a question about the George Clooney and Sandra Bullock space film Gravity, she said she hadn't yet seen the film but discussed the possibility of the events in the film.

 

"We would never, ever, ever be in a scenario where our crew member would be free flying," she said. "If something really very strange were to happen and we did, the crews are actually equipped with these little backpacks that can help them get back to structure."

 

Physics teacher Robert Cervantes said the "field trip" took about a month to set up after NASA contacted the school with the opportunity.

 

He said the event would help engage students by introducing them to another El Pasoan who had made a highly successful career by studying science.

 

"You can teach them this is how you calculate this, these are the basic principles," Cervantes said. "But when they actually get to see how it applies and how it grows, they can see 'Hey, he's not really lying to us, it does exist out there.'"

 

Carlos Jimenez, an El Paso High junior with hope of a career with NASA, said leading up to the call to Johnson Space Center, he was extremely nervous.

 

"It's someone to look up to — a role model," he said of Kerrick. "It's inspiring."

 

 

Report: NASA Needs Agency-wide Rules for Foreign Access to Centers

 

Space News

 

NASA should centralize the patchwork of security procedures and personnel governing foreign access to its U.S. field centers, an independent panel recommended in a report triggered by allegations of security breaches at the centers.

 

"There is no systematic approach to [foreign national access management] at NASA," said the report from the National Academy for Public Administration. "[T]he result is a broad range of outcomes, many of which are insufficient."

 

The report, "An Independent Review of Foreign National Access Management," is the result of an investigation NASA requested back in March 2013 after Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) went public with allegations of security breaches involving foreign nationals at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., and Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. Wolf is chairman of the House Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee that funds NASA.

 

"NASA is in the process of examining each recommendation and expects to provide a report by early March to the Committees on Appropriations" in the Senate and House, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden wrote in a Feb. 7 letter to Wolf. The congressman's office released the letter Feb. 12, along with a summary of the report on NASA's handling of foreign access to its 10 field centers.

 

The leading recommendation in the summary is that NASA should manage center access by foreign nationals "as a program." That means crafting a top-level training handbook on policies such as export control and counterintelligence, moving counterintelligence personnel to field centers from NASA headquarters here, and putting the agency's Office of Protective Services under the direct oversight of NASA's senior leadership. Currently the headquarters-based office reports to Richard Keegan, associate administrator for NASA's Mission Support Directorate.

 

The report summary was dated January 2014. The full report, which included 27 recommendations, was not released publicly due to the sensitivity of its contents, Bolden wrote in his letter to Wolf.

 

The decision to keep the full report under wraps did not sit well with Wolf, who despite plans to retire in 2015 after 34 years on the Hill continues to press for increased scrutiny of NASA's interactions with certain foreign governments, particularly China's.

 

"Frankly, I was taken aback at the breadth and depth of security challenges identified across NASA and I am deeply disappointed the agency has restricted access to the report," Wolf said in a Feb. 12 press release. The report, Wolf said, "confirms not only the serious security challenges that need to be addressed, but a persistent organizational culture that fails to hold center leadership, employees and contractors accountable for security violations."

 

Wolf's 2013 allegations, based on anonymous whistle-blower reports, produced no evidence of either spying or violations of export control laws on NASA's part, although they did result in the arrest of a former NASA contractor, Chinese citizen Bo Jiang.

 

Jiang, who once worked on imaging technology at Langley, was arrested by the FBI while boarding a flight back to China. Jiang was never charged with spying. Rather, he was jailed for lying to the FBI about the contents of his luggage. Ultimately, Jiang was kicked out of the United States for downloading pornography and pirated movies onto his government-issued laptop.

 

Prior to Jiang's arrest, Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center since 2006, came under fire from Wolf and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Science Committee. The lawmakers asked then-FBI Director Robert Mueller to investigate whistle-blower allegations that the Justice Department had declined to prosecute alleged export control violations at Ames for political reasons.

 

Worden strenuously denied both that any such violations had taken place, or that Ames had obstructed any investigations. Melinda Haag, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, denied she ever sought permission from Justice Department headquarters in Washington to proceed with any indictments related to the alleged violations at Ames.

 

Wolf, whose subcommittee also funds the FBI, is a constant and vocal critic of the Chinese government and has spearheaded legislation that bans the U.S. space agency from bilateral cooperation with China and Chinese industry.

 

In his Feb. 12 press release, Wolf said his appropriations subcommittee would continue to press Bolden about national security matters in hearing scheduled for March.

 

 

Port Canaveral wants to expand into KSC, Air Force land

 

Mark Matthews - Orlando Sentinel

 

For decades, Port Canaveral has lived in the shadow of its high-flying neighbors, Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

 

But in a power play that a few years ago would have been unthinkable, the port is trying to snag several hundred acres of land from KSC and the Air Force station. It also wants to run a train route through KSC to more efficiently connect the harbor to the state's rails.

 

If successful, the moves could help the port create as many as 5,000 jobs by 2021, John Walsh, CEO of the Canaveral Port Authority, told a congressional hearing this week.

 

That would be a major economic boost to a region still suffering from the 2011 retirement of the space shuttle.

 

"We believe with the rail connections, land expansions and cooperative programs … we can create 5,000 living-wage jobs in the port region over the next five to seven years and at least 10,000 jobs in the next 10 to 15 years," Walsh said in prepared remarks. About 7,000 people now work at the port.

 

To pursue the plan, Port Canaveral needs permission from military and NASA leaders. That approval is not guaranteed, though Walsh is optimistic.

 

"What I'm trying to do is plan for the next generation," he said.

 

About 4 million passengers pass through Port Canaveral annually, and it ranked as the nation's second-busiest cruise port in 2012, behind PortMiami. Canaveral also handles about 4 million tons of cargo, Walsh said, ranging from salt and cement to cars and juice. In terms of tons moved, however, it lags other Florida ports such as Everglades, Tampa, Jacksonville and Miami.

 

It is already undergoing a five-year, nearly $600 million expansion that includes the opening of a new cruise terminal and cargo facility this year. The latest plan would expand the port even more and has three main parts.

 

The first is a rail line that would connect Port Canaveral to the rest of Florida's rail system.

 

Port officials want to build a 10-mile spur, largely through KSC property, that would link the harbor with a railway inside KSC that NASA built for the shuttle program but no longer uses. No cost estimate was provided.

 

The goal is to make it easier — and cheaper — for ships to transfer a wide range of goods using the KSC line, which connects to the Florida East Coast Railway north of Titusville. Although studies have to be done first, port officials said they hoped to start construction as soon as mid-2015 and operations by 2017.

 

"If we can put a man onto the moon, fly shuttles to a space station and send rovers to Mars, surely we can connect 10 miles of railroad in a technology that has been done since the 1800s," Walsh said.

 

In exchange for the spur and use of the railway, port officials would pay for the track's operations and maintenance, a trade-off that one NASA official said could save the agency at least a couple of million dollars during the next several years.

 

Even so, the agency isn't quite ready.

 

"We're interested in what they have to say. We think there might be some opportunity to share some costs and reduce our burden to taxpayers," said Scott Colloredo, director of planning and development at KSC. "But we don't want to short-circuit the process. It will take some time."

 

If NASA does agree, one top port advocate said the rail line would be a "game-changer" because it would allow Port Canaveral to better tap into the "container" model of shipping, in which large containers are efficiently transferred from ships to rail.

 

"There's a lot of potential," said Doug Wheeler, president and CEO of the Florida Ports Council.

 

Related to this request is about 100 acres where Walsh said the port wants to expand.

 

Ownership of the property is a little murky — both NASA and Port Canaveral have claims — but Walsh said the port could use the area to support the new railway and build new facilities.

 

The final piece of the port's plan deals with Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

 

Although the port already claims about 1,000 acres of land on the Space Coast — and an additional 1,400 acres of water — the growing cruise and cargo industry has fueled a demand for more territory.

 

With more growth on the horizon, Walsh said he sent an "unsolicited" letter to the Air Force asking whether it would lease as much as 500 acres to the port for about $3 million a year.

 

Air Force officials did not respond to requests for comment on the proposal.

 

In pushing for new turf, the port has one major ally: U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park.

 

The veteran legislator and former chairman of the House transportation committee held a congressional hearing on the Space Coast this week to look at how NASA was using its property — while putting pressure on the agency to move forward with the railway project.

 

"I have been an advocate for that," Mica said in an interview prior to the hearing. "It would dramatically increase economic activity at the port."

 

Though there has been talk of linking Port Canaveral and its cruise ships with All Aboard Florida — a new passenger rail that will connect Orlando with Miami — Mica said the effort to build a rail line to Port Canaveral is more about transporting products, not people.

 

"Eventually maybe [All Aboard Florida] could go there," he said. "But this is more of an effort to get freight right to the ports."

 

 

Downey space museum is struggling to survive

The Columbia Memorial Space Center, on a site tied to the Apollo and space shuttle programs, is a big drain on city funds, but the city wants to wean it off public support

 

James Barragan - Los Angeles Times

 

Bob Thompson fondly remembers when Downey was buzzing with pride and payrolls as a major hub for work on the Apollo space program and the construction site for six space shuttles.

 

"Since the beginning of time, we had all these world leaders who looked up at the moon," said Thompson, a 72-year-old local history buff who worked for 34 years on the site where the spacecraft were built. "Here in Downey we built the vehicles that put the first man on the moon, and that is why it's a great source of pride."

 

City officials doled out $8 million in municipal funds to open the Columbia Memorial Space Center in 2009. The sleek, futuristic-looking building, packed with relics from the nation's space program, was built as a museum, hands-on learning center and a national memorial to the seven astronauts who perished in a 2003 fiery breakup of the space shuttle Columbia as it reentered Earth's atmosphere.

 

The space center sits on part of the once-sprawling 177-acre manufacturing site.

 

Engineers and technicians in Downey built the command module that enabled Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to become the first people to walk on the moon in 1969. In 1972, the site received the contract that became synonymous with the city itself when it began work on the space shuttle.

 

But as memories of the Apollo and shuttle programs fade, the space center is struggling to attract visitors and donors. Now, city officials are looking for new ways to fund the struggling institution. Its deficit of more than $500,000 — an improvement over past years — is coming out of city funds.

 

"Our city government is not in the business of running museums," said Fernando Vasquez, mayor of the city in southeast Los Angeles County. The City Council has "been committed to supporting this museum, but at some point, we need to see a plan that's sustainable."

 

The suburban city of 111,000 — which has a hotel called the Shuttle Inn, a park named after the Apollo program and a street named Columbia — is struggling to maintain a showcase for its seven decades of aerospace work.

 

Downey's association with the aerospace industry began in 1929, when a plot of land for growing citrus in south Downey was converted to an aircraft manufacturing plant.

 

As it changed hands over the years, the site would be used to build fighter planes for World War II, develop the Navaho missile project and, finally, become the "cradle of the cosmic age" when North American Aviation, which evolved into Rockwell International, won the contracts for the Apollo and space shuttle programs.

 

Today, the aerospace complex at the intersection of Lakewood Boulevard and Alameda Street has been replaced by the sprawling Downey Landing shopping center, the Apollo park, a Kaiser Permanente hospital and the gleaming Columbia Memorial Space Center.

 

Less than a mile from the 105 Freeway and near the site of the former Downey Studios, the museum had about 30,000 visitors last year. Schoolchildren who are drawn to hands-on exhibitions such as the space mission simulator and a recently renovated robotics lab are a steady source of visitors, with about 200 field trips from nearby schools last year.

 

City officials want to wean the museum off city money and find more sustainable funding sources. They have taken steps to address some of its lingering issues. Critics — including some in City Hall — say lack of leadership has contributed to the museum's problems.

 

City officials have started the search for a full-time executive director. The center has had an executive director for only eight months of its five-year history, and that was in the beginning. The rest of the time it's been run by a series of city employees who were only devoted to the museum part time.

 

Officials say an experienced executive director would know how to raise money, bring in popular exhibits and find creative ways to generate revenue, which the museum desperately needs.

 

"That's probably been part of the problem," City Councilman Alex Saab said. "We need someone whose role is strictly to look after the center."

 

Gerald Blackburn, who worked at the aerospace plant for 44 years and has been involved with the museum since its conception, said the center has fallen in priority amid the city's budget cutbacks. He understands financial difficulties but thinks the preservation of the city's history should be funded.

 

"The Columbia Memorial Space Center has a tremendous potential to become a community heritage and legacy, but it is not going to happen until commitment, leadership and vision are in place to make it happen," Blackburn said.

 

The Downey space center may already have a big-ticket draw at its disposal: Inspiration.

 

Inspiration is a full-scale space shuttle mock-up — largely made of wood and plastic — that Rockwell built in 1972 to show what it would look like before the program was approved.

 

In recent decades, the 122-by-78-foot model remained hidden away at the former manufacturing site. The mock-up is on display a few hundred feet from the museum but will soon be moved into storage again because of a lack of funds.

 

In 2012, the city estimated it would cost $2 million to properly exhibit the mock shuttle, more than 21/2 times the entire budget for the museum in 2013.

 

City officials see the development of a shopping center next to the museum as part of the solution to its problems.

 

When the Promenade at Downey mall — with displays on the city's aerospace history — is completed early next year, they hope it also will draw thousands of shoppers to the museum.

 

"The people who worked there dreamed of going to the stars and took us to the moon," Blackburn said. "How could you not see the importance of that?"

 

END

 

More detailed space news can be found at:

 

http://spacetoday.net/